The guild meeting had continued without incident after Sora and Blossom returned. The mood was a little awkward at first but it quickly returned after Blossom showed off her bright smile. Sumi’s friend showed up and joined along in the merriment, Sora decided to hold off on inviting her to the guild just in case her and Sumi started to grow apart again. Sora was able to meet every person that showed up before the guild headed back towards Wind Wolf Village. Sora decided to drop by before going to his next destination, it was on the way and he was curious to see how his guild functioned.

After watching his guild for a little bit he decided to leave, the players were getting nervous from being watched by their leader and it disrupted their performance. Sora excused himself from the event and left towards the North, heading into demon territory. The demon territory didn’t look any different from the faction territory, the only difference was that the levels of the enemies were fifty and above. If the faction controlled the territory then their levels would be lowered and their numbers thinner.

Sora had been reminded of the importance of pets when he saw Blossom get hers. His current destination was an area that had a chance to drop white tiger pets, it was also close to an elf village that Sora wanted to have a look at. He rode Luna forward, ignoring the slow enemies and simply outrunning them.

It didn’t take long for Sora to reach an area with trees that towered far into the sky, making the area darker than normal due to the massive amount of leaves that blocked out the light of the sun. The forest became darker as he went further in, making his sight be limited to a small area in front of him. He only stopped when a few rays of light lit up the area in front of him, showing white tigers that were bathing in the sun.

Level 50 -White Tiger-

The tigers were three levels above him which made it difficult if he had to fight multiple enemies at once. Sora was heavily geared so as long as he was careful he shouldn’t have any problems with fighting the white tigers. Sora dismounted Luna and put her back into her pet storage, losing her was the last thing he wanted to happen here. He slowly crept up on one of the tigers and triggered its aggro.

Yellow pupils looked at Sora like he was a meal as a terrifying roar filled the silence in the air. The white tiger started to prowl towards Sora who was already prepared with his weapon and parrying dagger. Once the tiger was around five meters away, it jumped towards him with its claws extended out, shining only for a second as it passed under a ray of light. Sora dodged to the side and used a [Slash] to start the battle, luckily landing a critical hit that took a large chunk of health from the tiger. The tiger responded with a simple swipe that was only able to take a small portion of Sora’s health due to his high defense and the shield he had received thanks to his Obsidian Bloodsteel set.

The tiger was fast, making it hard for Sora to parry and resulting in a lot of attacks that connected on him. There were even a few moments when the tiger was able to dodge Sora’s attacks. This not only slowed down his damage, it also made him lose opportunities to generate a shield resulting in even more damage than he had expected to take. The tiger weakly fell after the drug out fight, dropping a few coins and some white fur. Sora could only sigh as he looked at his health. He had dropped to 60% health from that one tiger, if he had to fight two then he would surely be in trouble. The only bright side was that the tiger had given Sora a nice boost in EXP. Sora kept killing the tigers, only stopping when he needed to take a break to recover health and mana.

…..

[Level up]

Sora had been at it for half a day now, barely managing to level up one time. He still hasn’t been able to get his desired drop and his supplies were starting to take a hit. Sora sat down next to a tree and looked at his stats as he let his health and mana recover.

Ethereal, The Honored

Vanquisher Knight

Level - 48

Damage - 233-242

Defense - 118

Mana - 20/500

HP - 710/2250

Strength - 160(+160)

Agility - 10(+5)

Constitution - 75(+150)

Dexterity - 10(+5)

Endurance - 10(+5)

Intelligence - 10(+5)

Wisdom - 10(+5)

Spirit - 35(+15)

Luck - 6 (+2)

Fame - 550

His damage had been stagnant for a while now, he looked at the level 50 sword in his inventory with a sense of longing. If he could equip the sword then his speed would almost be doubled. He ate a Roasted Crater Fish as he sat near the tree, looking up towards the branches above him. His eyes suddenly squinted as he thought he saw a shadow moving along the branch, in the next moment he suddenly rolled to the side as an arrow lodged itself into the tree trunk behind him.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

Sora started to wave his hands frantically as he saw the shadow notch another arrow. The shadow slowly put his bow down as he saw Sora doing this. The shadow came down to a closer branch but still didn’t quite trust him. A gentle voice that was hard to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman came from the shadow.

“Why are you here, are you a human? Are you a demon? Are you a shapeshifter? Are you-”

“I’m a human, an adventurer from the city of Var.”

“... What proof do you have?”

“I was given a title of knighthood.”

Sora equipped his Knight of the Eastern Legion title to authenticate his identity, the shadow only came down after seeing that. A man with pointed ears and fair skin appeared in one of the rays of light. He had blonde hair and could almost pass as being a woman, he let out a small whistle as a couple hidden shadows appeared on the branches before jumping down next to Sora. Another man and a woman appeared in front of Sora as they walked into the light. The man had a similar look to the man that had met with Sora first, except with short brown hair. The woman looked like a fairy, with skin that almost seemed translucent as the light touched it and long light brown hair that was perfectly straight. The man seemed to be the leader and was the only person who spoke.

“It has been a long time since we have seen a human, ever since the demons invaded we have been in hiding in the forest. How are things for the humans?”

“We were pushed back to our last territories, many great sages had to sacrifice their lives so that we could fight back. We have started a counter-attack and were able to reclaim a bit of territory.”

“I see… Hopefully you will be able to reclaim this territory as well so we may come out of hiding. We may not like humans too much but we would take them over demons any day.”

“It is only a matter of time until we reclaim this area.”

“I hope what you say is true. We will be going back to our village for now, if you are ever run into another elf just show them this badge and they should let you through. Tell them you would like to meet with Desakor and they will send someone to inform me.”

Desakor handed over a small badge that was woven from a dark brown type of wood, with a bright green leaf in the middle. The badge went into Sora’s reputation page with the word ‘Neutral’ next to it. The elves disappeared immediately after handing the badge over, returning to the branches above as mere shadows.

Sora was glad he had this encounter, it made it a lot easier to enter the elf village when he needed to. He didn’t enter the village until his faction reclaimed the territory in his last life so he was able to casually walk in. It looks like when you don’t own the territory it is a little trickier to enter. Sora had an idea of how to make a lot of money if he was able to get his reputation up with them, he shuddered slightly as he thought about his last reputation grind. His health and mana were full again so Sora started to kill off the white tigers once again.

…..

Sora was on the verge of leveling up at the end of the day, just a few more tigers would get him to level 49, one level away from being able to equip his new sword. The thought of it made Sora excited as he rushed onto the next tiger, using everything he had to take it down quickly. The rush had definitely made him kill faster but it also created a bit of a problem.

Sora used [Purge with Silver] as he wailed on the tiger, its passive effect didn’t do anything but the 200% damage at the end would help quite a bit with speeding up the process. Sora was able to drag the tiger down to 20% before the ability ended, triggering a flash of silver light to appear in the battle. The only problem was that one of the silver lights had traveled to the right of Sora. He cursed himself for his impatience as another white tiger appeared from around one of the tree trunks.

Sora managed to dodge the first attack the new tiger made but ended up taking a hit from the old tiger. Sora used [Concuss] on the new tiger so he could focus on killing the first one, this way it would relieve some pressure. The [Concuss] only stalled the new tiger for a while before it broke free of the stun and attacked Sora once again, this time making contact at the same time as the other tiger. A large chunk of health dropped from Sora’s health pool, bringing him into a critical condition. He used a healing potion before immediately having to dodge another combined attack, only being able to dodge one of them. Sora used a final normal attack and [Slash] to finish off the first tiger before focusing all of his attention on the second one. The tiger swiped at Sora who was just barely able to parry the attack before using [Concuss] so he had some time to build up his shield again. The shield had barely started to grow when the tiger broke free from the stunned state and delivered another swipe towards Sora, taking away every bit of his shield and a decent portion of health. Sora used [Crippling Strike] to gain some distance from the tiger, triggering the leap attack that was easy to dodge. Sora dodged to the side and made distance again, stalling until [Concuss] came back up. He kept stalling for time and only attacking when he could stun the tiger, eventually killing it with only a hundred health points left.

[Level up]

Sora had his health and mana restored as he leveled up which made Sora breathe a sigh of relief. He picked up the fur and coins before taking a small break, he had made a terrible decision that almost cost him his life and felt like he needed to calm down a bit before continuing. He sat down next to the tree and closed his eyes for a second, only opening them when a small pinging noise disrupted the silence of the forest.

-Faction Announcement-

Player Spring has created the guild ‘Everlasting’

Sora only opened his eyes for a second before closing them again with a smirk on his face. The silence of the forest returned again only to be broken once again by Sora, muttering something to himself.

“It’s about time, I was getting a little bored.”